David W. Bowker is the Chair of WilmerHale’s International Litigation/Controversy Working Group. He has a great amount of trial and appellate experience, representing US and foreign companies, multi-nationals, foreign states and nonprofit organizations before international arbitration tribunals, state and federal trial courts, courts of appeal and the US Supreme Court. He joined the firm in 2002 after serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the US Department of State.
Mr. Bowker recently argued and won a landmark First Amendment case in the US Supreme Court in the matter of USAID v. Alliance for Open Society International, No. 12-10 (decided June 20, 2013). He also argued and won an important act of state decision in the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the matter of Konowaloff v. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 702 F.3d 140, which affirmed the district court 's rejection of a claim to a valuable Cezanne painting in the Museum 's permanent collection.
He has particular experience handling complex commercial disputes, class action litigations, international and multi-jurisdictional matters, post-war reparations and restitution programs, art and antiquities claims, constitutional challenges to state and federal statutes, investor-state disputes and other sovereign-related matters.
EDUCATION: University of California, Los Angeles, B.A.; Tufts University Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, MALD; University of California Berkeley, J.D.